The battlefield
by ShalomNoir
Summary: After five years, the war is still ravaging the country. Battles are constantly fought. After each one, Hermione stays behind, on the battlefield, roaming around for a while. People find it absurd. When you look closer, it isn't.


**Disclaimer**: **Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling.**

_I wanted to publish few of my short stories so I turned to this site. That is how I discovered a strange pairing which really works. You have already guessed. Dramione. Hence, I decided to write a short story about the two of them. It's a short story for now. It could become more. Read and review. Please, let me know if I should continue._

The war is ravaging the country like a never ending plague. Voldemort is gaining strength. He is rarely seen nowadays, always away… gathering forces all over the world. Harry and Ron are slowly losing faith that we will ever finish this. The three of us are on a continuous horcrux hunt for the last five years. We destroyed all the ones Dumbledore gave us clues for, even Nagini. Harry tried to kill him immediately after we destroyed the last horcrux, but he had made another one. The word is that only one person, besides Voldemort, knows what the new one is. And it is someone of his most trusted servants. The question is who: Bellatrix, Lucius, Snape, or someone else. It could even be… No, I don't want to think about that. I refuse to.

While in the dark, we, Harry, Ron, and I, continue our search and in spare moments we fight. Some battles are won, others lost. Both sides fight vigorously. It is always the worst in the aftermath. Repeatedly, after the fighting is over, I remain the last to leave the battlefield, roaming around, looking… I've lost so many friends over the years that I stopped counting. The smell of blood, smoke, and corpses is ingrained in my nostrils that I can recall it even in my happiest moments. But still, I always stay after everyone leaves – just me and dead bodies. Some find it absurd. It is not.

I stopped lying to myself ages ago. It is not friends who I look for in these abhorrent moments. It is me making sure that a certain body is not among the fallen masked figures. Only once I am sure there are no platinum blonde strands extending underneath the black hooded cloaks, I am ready to leave. Tonight, however, is somehow different. I have a strange feeling that I am not alone.

"Looking for something, Granger?" a voice startles me and I turn around to face an all-too-familiar pair of eyes, the deepest pools of grey I have ever encountered. There appears to be an unfamiliar thread of black, tainting those grey pools, but I am too ecstatic to care for those trivialities. An eternity has passed since I last saw him. All the feelings I thought were long dead and buried are back in my heart, in an instance. Regardless, I do try to appear distantly calm.

'Looking for the today's last kill, Malfoy?' I ask him bitterly.

'Oh, if that were my intention, you would be long gone,' he simply states.

'What do you mean by that?' I ask.

'I mean,' he pointedly says, 'your little adventures around open battlefields will cease, today.'

'What is it to you?' I can't hide my acrimony, 'You can't tell me what I should or shouldn't do.'

'Granger, you are trying my patience and these days, it is not one of my more remarkable qualities.'

'As if you have any,' I reply and while I simultaneously feel weak and flustered, I have this pressing urge to provoke him. I am aware that I am in the proximity of a notorious Death Eater, but the urge to make him angry is so strong that I can't help myself.

'Look, as if it isn't enough that you constantly expose yourself to danger while vainly wandering around the country with those two idiots – you additionally roam around battlefields. What for? Finding and memorizing more and more dead Mudblood bodies to torment yourself with?' he queries me completely ignoring the acid tone of my previous remark.

The word alone is enough to make me even angrier. 'You mean dead bodies you and your kind leave behind. Innocent people,' I say accusingly.

Once more, he completely ignores my statements, 'Granger, I won't repeat myself. You will do your best to avoid trouble and you will stay out of the battlefields.'

I am beyond angry. Who does he think he is, ordering me around after killing innocents, my people, in cold blood? He gives himself some twisted sense of right to demand things from me, apparently for my benefit.

'You are a cold blooded murder. You have no right to talk about me, my friends, or any decisions I make. What I do is no concern of you. It has not been a concern of you for the last five years. What are you trying to accomplish by showing your face now? Why should I listen to you and your warnings? You hate and kill Mudbloods. I am a Mudblood. So why am I any different?' I discharge all my frustration and anger at him.

This triggers a reaction. I can recognize a spark of anger in his grey depths. He grabs and pulls me close before saying, 'The difference is that you were, are, and will always be MY Mudblod!'


End file.
